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Manchester’s Climate Change Strategy is underway with the aim of becoming a zero carbon city by 2050. Beyond this local action, on the 11th of January 2018, Theresa May launched the Government’s vision for a greener future – the 25 year Environment Plan. Within this ambitious plan lies, amongst other things, a pledge to eliminate avoidable waste, introduce new safeguards for wildlife and connect more children with nature.

Residents of Greater Manchester are key to recycling and reducing waste! The Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority want, with the help of residents and partners, to be recycling well over 50% and diverting at least 85% of waste from landfill from this year. This is an issue for us all and recycling and reducing plastics is an important part of this.

In November, the University of Manchester’s Sustainable Consumption Institute hosted a workshop as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences designed to showcase current research and generate dialog on issues of meat consumption, innovation and sustainability.

China’s recent halt on importing plastics for recycling in Autumn 2017 has already made Councils throughout the UK uneasy as waste begins to build. The UK are looking at other markets such as Vietnam to send our waste, but it is unlikely that there will be another market that could receive the immense volume of plastics that Hong Kong and China have used too. The UK alone has shipped 2.7 million tonnes since 2012, this is around two thirds of all plastic waste.

A patch of unused, urban land adjacent to the former Mayfield railway station building in Manchester city centre has had an incredible transformation into the city’s newest and smallest urban park with the help of the Mayfield Partnership’s horticultural advisers, the Green Health Alliance.

The Christmas holidays can be a time of excess for many who are celebrating in the UK, but is going vegan the new trend in January? Veganuary, an organisation on a mission to get us to ditch the Turkey sandwiches for plant based options.

A new exhibition at Manchester's Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art considers the environmental and social impact of the drive for increasing technological advances and the universality of items such as smartphones.

As a student, whose daily commute involves traversing Oxford and Wilmslow Road by bike, it cannot be over emphasised just how much the protected roadside traffic lanes encourage the use of bicycles when getting around Manchester. Cycling keeps me fit and saves me money so is an appealing mode of travel for cash strapped students. Yet I often hear from my fiends they are too worried to cycle in Manchester due to the volume of daily traffic passing in and out.

The recently released Net-Zero North report, produced by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) puts forward the establishment of regional ‘carbon budgets’ in order to help the UK shift towards a decarbonised society through a focus on the regional level.